Wednesday, April 22, 2015

A Book You Need—A Review of "LadyLike: Living Biblically," by Rebekah Curtis and Rose Adle

As a pastor of your standard, midwest, rural congregation of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, I am always looking for resources that are doctrinally sound, well written, and easily accessible for the laity. Resources that your standard, midwest, rural layman of The LutheranChurch—Missouri Synod can pick up and mine the riches of biblical and Lutheran truth and apply to their lives on their own. This is all the more the case, when those resources cover topics that are not always covered so easily in sermons and Bible classes. I suspect that I am not alone.

But more than simply a resource that I can hand out to the people I serve, I also look for resources that help me learn, not what to say, but rather how to say it, and say it better. I want resources to help me communicate biblical truths in an understandable way with grace and empathy. I know what is right. I know what needs to be said, but I don’t always know how to communicate that in a way that engages the hearer to listen and learn, instead of being offensive and off-putting. I suspect here, too, that I am not alone. We LCMS types are good at being right, at knowing what is doctrinally and biblically correct, but we don’t always have the words to communicate it, and thus our voice and the truth carried by it can sometimes fall on deaf ears.

Rose Adle & Rebekah Curtis

LadyLike: Living Biblically, by sisters Rebekah Curtis and Rose Adle, is one of those rare resources that does both. The book is a series of essays, which reads more like short blog posts, divided into four topical sections: World Viewing, Vocation Station, Some Theology Stuff, and Piety. The essays engage the problems of feminism and how that ideology has infected even people who reject it. They look at vocation—what it is and what it isn’t. They explain difficult Bible passages and biblical terms like submission and order of creation as they were meant to be and as God instituted them. They write about the pains and joys of marriage and children, barrenness and miscarriage as God wills it. They even discuss stewardship, prudence, propriety, modesty, and humility as it relates to those who are called to be women—wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters. They are often funny, sometimes cutting and even sad, but they are always engaging and filled with truth, truth we so desperately need to hear and speak.

So, if you’re like me, looking for stand-alone resources you can put into the hands of your members, or you’re just looking for a way to speak the truth in love, LadyLike offers you both.